Dead World Read online

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  DEAD WORLD

  By JACK DOUGLAS

  Illustrated by BARR

  _Out on the ice-buried planet, Commander Red Stone led his Free Companions to almost certain death. They died for a dangerous dream that had only one chance in a thousand trillion to come true. Is there a better reason for dying?_

  _... although the most recent star to die, RNAC 89778 in the distantMenelaus galaxy (common name, Menelaus XII), had eight inhabitedplanets, only some one thousand people of the fifth planet escaped andsurvived as a result of a computer error which miscalculated the exacttime by two years. Due to basic psycho-philo maladjustments the refugeesof Menelaus XII-5 are classified as anti-social-types-B-6 and must beconsidered unstable. All anti-social-types-B-6 are barred fromresponsible positions in United Galaxies by order of the Inter-GalacticCouncil._

  --Short History of The United Galaxies

  * * * * *

  Yuan Saltario started it. He was serving in my Company and he was one ofthem. A Menelaus XII-5 "unstable," and don't ever call that damnedlittle planet by its number if you meet one of them. They call itNova-Maurania. But you won't meet one of them. Or maybe you will, maybethey did make it. I like to think they did.

  There were a lot of them in the Companies in 3078. Restless men. TheCompanies were the logical place for them. We're still classifiedanti-social-B-6, too. Every year it's harder to get recruits, but westill have to be careful who we take in. We took Yuan Saltario. Therewas something about him from the very start.

  "Why do you want to join a Free Company?" He was a short, humanoid typewith deep black eyes and a thin, lipless mouth that never smiled.

  "I'm an anti-social. I like to fight. I want to fight."

  "A misfit joining the misfits? A grudge against the Council? It's notgood enough, mister, we live on the Council. Try again."

  Saltario's black eyes stared without a flicker. "You're Red Stone,Commander of the Red Company. You hate the Council and I hate theCouncil. You're the ..." Saltario stopped.

  I said, "The Traitor of the Glorious War of Survival. You can say it,Saltario."

  The lipless mouth was rigid. "I don't think of it that way. I think of aman with personal integrity," Saltario said.

  I suppose I should have seen it then, the rock he carried deep insidehim. It might have saved thirty thousand good men. But I was thinking ofmyself. Commander Red Stone of the Red Company, Earthmen. Only we're notall Earthmen now, every year there are fewer recruits, and it won't belong before we die out and the Council will have the last laugh. Old RedStone, the Traitor of the War of Survival, the little finger of my lefthand still missing and telling the Universe I was a very old soldier ofthe outlawed Free Companies hanging onto life on a rocky planet of thedistant Salaman galaxy. Back at the old stand because United Galaxiesstill need us. In a way it's a big joke. Two years after Rajay-Ben and Ihad a bellyfull of the Glorious War of Survival and they chased us allthe way out here, they turned right around and made the peace. A joke onme, but sometimes I like to think that our runout was the thing thatmade them think and make peace. When you've been a soldier forthirty-five years you like to win battles, but you like to feel youhelped bring peace, too.

  * * * * *

  I said, "Personal integrity. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? So youlike personal integrity? All right, Saltario, are you sure you know whatyou're getting into? We're 60 million light years from Galaxy Center, 10million from the nearest United Galaxy city. We've got no comforts, nofuture, nothing to do but fight. A woman in her right mind won't look atus, if they see you in uniform they'll spit on you, if they catch youout of uniform they'll kill you."

  Saltario shrugged. "I like to eat. I've got nowhere to go. All I've gotis myself and a big piece of ice I called home."

  I nodded. "Okay. We fight small wars for good profits. It's not Earthout here, but we've got four nice suns, plenty of Lukanian whiskyRajay-Ben taught the locals to make, and we're our own masters. TheUnited Galaxies leaves us pretty much alone unless they need us. You doyour job, and your job is what I tell you to do, period. You got thatstraight?"

  Saltario very nearly smiled. "It sounds good to me, sir."

  "I hope it'll sound good in a year, Saltario, because once you're in youdon't get out except feet first. Is that clear? I have life and deathrights over you. You owe allegiance to the Red Company and me and to noone else. Got that? Today your best friends are the men of Rajay-Ben'sLukanian Fourth Free Patrol, and your worst enemies are the men ofMandasiva's Sirian O Company. Tomorrow Rajay-Ben's boys may be yourworst enemies, and Mandasiva's troops your best friends. It all dependson the contract. A Company on the same contract is a friend, a Companyagainst the contract is an enemy. You'll drink with a man today, andkill him tomorrow. Got it? If you kill a Free Companion without acontract you go to court-martial. If you kill a citizen of the UnitedGalaxies except in a battle under contract I throw you to the wolves andthat means you're finished. That's the way it is."

  "Yes, sir." Saltario never moved a muscle. He was rigid.

  "Right," I said, "get your gear, see the Adjutant and sign theagreement. I think you'll do."

  Saltario left. I sat back in my chair and thought about how manynon-Earthmen I was taking into the Company. Maybe I should have beenthinking about this one single non-Earthman and the something he wascarrying inside him, but I didn't, and it cost the Companies thirtythousand men we couldn't afford to lose. We can't afford to lose oneman. There are only a hundred Companies now, twenty thousand men each,give or take a few thousand depending on how the last contract went.Life is good in the United Galaxies now that they've disarmed andoutlawed all war again, and our breed is dying out faster than it did inthe 500 years of peace before the War of Survival. Too many of the oldCompanions like me went west in the War of Survival. The GalacticCouncil know they need us, know that you can't change all livingcreatures into good Galactic citizens overnight, so they let us go onfighting for anyone in the Universe who wants to take something fromsomeone else, or who thinks someone else wants to take something fromhim. And even the mighty United Galaxies needs guards for expeditions tothe unexplored galaxies. But they don't like us and they don't want us.They don't cut off our little fingers anymore, but we have to wear ourspecial black uniforms when we go into United territory under penalty ofa quick death. Humane, of course, they just put us to sleep gently andfor keeps. And they've got a stockpile of ionic bombs ready at all timesin case we get out of hand. We don't have ionic weapons, that's part ofthe agreement and they watch us. They came close to using them downthere in the frozen waste of Menelaus XII, but thirty thousand of usdied without ionics. We killed each other. They liked that, even if theydidn't like what happened.

  * * * * *

  Do you know what it means to be lost? Really lost? I'm lost, if thatmeans I know I'll never go back to live on Earth. But I know that Earthis still there to go back to, and I can dream of going home. YuanSaltario and the other refugees have no home to go back to. They can'teven dream. They sat in that one ship that escaped and watched theirplanet turn into a lifeless ball of ice that would circle dead andfrozen forever around its burned-out star. A giant tomb that carriedunder its thick ice their homes and their fields and their loves. Andthey could not even hope and dream. Or I did not think they could.

  Saltario had been with us a year when we got the contract to escort thesurvey mission to Nova-Maurania. A private Earth commercial mining firmlooking for minerals under the frozen wastes of the dead planet.Rajay-Ben was in on the contract. We took two battalions, one from myRed C
ompany, and one from Rajay-Ben's Lukanian Patrol. My Sub-Commanderwas Pete Colenso, old Mike Colenso's boy. It all went fine for a week orso, routine guard and patrol. The survey team wouldn't associate withus, of course, but we were used to that. We kept our eyes open and ourmouths shut. That's our job, and we give value for money received. So wewere alert and ready. But it wasn't the attack that nearly got us thistime. It was the cold of the dead planet lost in absolute zero andabsolute darkness.

  Nova-Maurania was nearly 40 percent uranium, and who could resist that?A Centaurian trading unit did not resist the lure. The attack was quickand hard. A typical Lukanian Patrol attack. My Company was pinned downat the first